The major reason for cedi depreciation is speculative activities - Government

The Minister of State at the Finance Ministry Charles Adu-Boahen, has urged Ghanaians to remain calm because the government was taking steps to stop the cedi’s depreciation.

He stated that the central bank is working to make more hard currencies available to importers and business owners in the refined products sector.

He added that the bank has entered into an agreement with mining companies within the oil and gas sector to buy their forex to help support BoG’s reserves.

"The currency depreciation is due to a host of issues, but the most important one is speculative activities that are creating some unnecessary depreciation of the currency, but we are taking steps to ensure that we can address some of the concerns."

"We believe that all the measures put in place, together with the African Export-Import Bank’s $750 million loan, followed by Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD’s) $1.3 billion syndicated loan facility for the 2020/2021 cocoa crop season, will help shore up the currency and stabilise it.”

The Minister of State explained that these measures would be impactful in the shortest possible time.

”The African Export-Import Bank’s $750 million loan should begin the first step towards making sure that stabilisation occurs,” he revealed.

Meanwhile, he has denied claims by the Ghana Union of Traders that the cedi depreciation was a deliberate attempt by the government.

”Uner what circumstance will we intentionally depreciate the currency?”

To him, such a move would not help the country, adding that ”rather it will create a situation where our debt becomes more expensive, our debt-to-gross domestic product goes up, and we need to find more cedis to service our debt. There are so many reasons it is not in our interest to have a weaker currency.”

He was speaking to journalists after the Ministry of Finance and officials from the Bank of Ghana briefed the Council of State on the state of the economy and the steps being taken to address the challenges.